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Issue 47 Summer 2015 Free/Donation

Blockade at Northwood PJHQ on Holy Innocents Day,

Nora Ziegler, Scott Albrecht and Dan Viesnik

Inside this issue: Letter from Kathy Kelly p2 Abraham’s Oak Pat Gaffney p4 Abida and the Dates Michael Sutherland p5 Reflections from the Catholic Worker Eurogathering Nora Zeigler p6 Update from Giuseppe Conlon House Mirjam Johannson It’s been emotional Dan Viesnik p8 Recipe from Giuseppe Conlon House Nora Zeigler p9 Make a donation: p 11 &12

International public witness to the suffering of migrants in the Mediterranean Peter Haresnape, Kathy Moorhead Thiessen, Tim deVisser

On Friday, 15 May, Catholic Workers joined Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) Europe Convergence and international peace activist Kathy Kelly, of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, in an act of public witness to draw attention to the deaths of migrants and refugees in the Mediterranean Sea and the culpability of the UK government in these deaths.

Beginning with a silent march from St. Martin in the Fields to the Foreign and Commonwealth office, the pro-cession became a vigil with prayers, stories, songs and the naming of the dead. Office staff did not accept a prepared letter of protest to Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond. Moving on in silence, the procession then visited the Home Office with a letter to Home Secretary, Theresa May, which was accepted, [cont. page 8]

Catholic Worker Euro-gathering and Christian Peacemaker Teams Europe Convergence gather at the foot of St. Martins in the Fields , London [Photo Jonathan Dorsett]

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Letter from Voices for Creative Nonviolence Kathy Kelly

At a recent gathering with London Catholic Workers, I was invited to speak about Voices experiences living alongside people trapped in war zones and in prisons. I had recently been imprisoned in a federal prison in Lexington, Kentucky. Maya Evans and I would soon be traveling to Kabul, where young friends sometimes feel as though their country has been turned into one big prison. I asked Dan Viesnik to help me with the presentation by reading an excerpt from a book by Sinan Antoon called ‘The Corpse Washer’. Antoon writes about an Iraqi family which has, for genera-tions, participated in Muslim burial rites by washing and enshrouding corpses. Following the 2003 Shock and Awe war in Iraq, the main character, Jawad, feels overwhelmed by the rising number of corpses he must care for.

“I felt as if we had been struck by an earthquake which had changed everything. For decades to come, we would be groping our way around in the rubble it left behind. In the past there were streams between Sunnis and Shiites, or this group and that, which could be easily crossed or were invisible at times. Now, after the earthquake, the earth had all these fissures and the streams had become riv-ers. The rivers became torrents filled with blood, and whoever tried to cross drowned. The images of those on the other side of the river had been inflated and disfigured…concrete walls rose to seal the tragedy.”

War is worse than an earthquake. Following an earth-quake, concerned people volunteer time and re-sources: relief teams from around the world race to find survivors and help reconstruct. But as wars rage,

The Catholic Worker in the UK

London Catholic Worker

Giuseppe Conlon House

44 Mattison Road

London N4 1BG

Tel: +44 (0) 20 8348 8212

Email: londoncatholicworker@yahoo.co.uk

Website: www.londoncatholicworker.org

Twitter: @LndnCathWorker

Facebook: London Catholic Worker

Giuseppe Conlon House offers hospitality to destitute

refugees. We also run the Urban Table soup kitchen. We

organise acts of non-violent resistance and produce this

newsletter.

Urban Table Soup Kitchen:

Open Sunday 2:30 — 4:30 pm,

The Round Chapel, Powerscroft Road,

Hackney, London E5 0PU

The Catholic Worker Farm

Lynsters Farm

Old Uxbridge Road

West Hude

Herts

WD3 9XJ

Tel: +44 (0) 1923 777 201

Email: thecatholicworkerfarm@yahoo.co.uk

Website: www.thecatholicworkerfarm.org

The Farm offers hospitality to destitute women. We grow

organic vegetables and have a poustina and hermitage

retreat. Maryhouse also offers a home to four destitute

women with children.

Glasgow Catholic Worker

email:glw@catholicworker.org.uk

website:www.catholicworker.org.uk

The Glasgow Catholic Worker offers a place of welcome

for asylum seekers and destitute refugees in the centre of

Glashow at the Garnethill Multicultural Centre, open Sat-

urday 9:00—1:00pm and a soup kitchen on Friday nights.

We keep a regular vigil at Faslane Nuclear Base as well

as having monthly meetings and prayers.

Kathy Kelly speaking at Giuseppe Conlon House, May 2015

[Photo Dan Viesnik]

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many can only watch the killing on their television screens, feeling helpless to make a difference, know-ing, as a difference they have made, that they them-selves helped supply the weapons being deployed today, and developed for future use. It’s acutely pain-ful to look in the mirror and see ourselves as people in whose name, and with whose material support, U.S. forces rampage around the world. Persistent, cynical efforts by the U.S. government to provoke new wars, to isolate competing governments at whatever cost to global security or health, and to anticipate and preemptively destroy possibilities for peace far into the future, are unspeakably ugly and tragic.

But if we’re ever to become rehabilitated, transformed from a menacing, fearsome empire-in-decline into a society with hope, one dedicated to sustainable work alongside the world's people at last building peacea-ble societies, then we must take that long, hard look in the mirror and carry the sight around with us as we plan our days and carry out our lives in prosperity, some part of which we hope the rest of the world will some day share. We hold ourselves accountable for how we’ve squandered our time and our resources, tolerating the insatiable demands of history's vastest killing machine, the military of the United States.

During Maya's and my recent trip to Kabul, I felt a blend of relief and anxiety listening to young friends excitedly expound the future they've planned for the school for Kabul street kids. It’s a relief to witness the youthful resolve with which they've created a space for children from three different ethnic backgrounds to join under one roof and learn, as they've never been allowed to learn, to read. It’s a relief to know that in spite of earthquake fissures and bloody torrents of hatred and despair, our young friends feel determined to persevere on behalf of their young students. But there's plenty of cause for anxiety. Can I do my part getting internationals to fund the school? In a moment of pique, I raised my voice and insisted to my young friends that all of the countries who’ve fought in Af-ghanistan, and most especially the U.S., should be paying reparations. “Kathy,” Zekerullah gently admon-ished me, “please don’t make people in your country feel guilty. Don’t you think most people would rather build than destroy?”

Zekerullah's gentle words reminded me of Barbara Deming's insight into how nonviolence should work. When facing opponents one hand holds the mirror for them to see their lives while the other offers to bal-ance and steady them. We need steadiness our-selves for this, so I'm especially grateful to the London Catholic Worker for the community's fine witness and work. Thank you for helping us to learn about, and alongside, communities striving mightily to dismantle the walls Antoon writes about, building a world where-in it’s easier to be good and where humans heal dis-asters, we don't make them. We see that work all around us and it's a gift to read further testaments in this newsletter.

Kathy Kelly is the coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, a campaign to end U.S. military and economic warfare [www.vcnv.org]

from Easy Essays

Peter Maurin

from On Personalism

To guide himself

Man has

not only reason

but also faith.

Faith

is not opposed to reason,

it is above reason.

The use of reason

leads to faith,

but reason

cannot understand

all the faith.

The truths of faith that reason

cannot understand,

we call the mysteries of faith.

To use reason

is to philosophise

and philosophy

is the handmaiden of faith.

Some truths

we get through reason

and some truths

we get through faith.

Emmanuel Mounier

wrote a book entitled

A Personalist Manifesto.

Emmanuel Mounier

has been influenced

by Charles Peguy.

Charles Peguy:

“There are two things

in the world:

politics and mysticism.”

For Charles Peguy

as well as Mounier,

politics is the struggle for power

while mysticism

is the realism

of the spirit.

For the man-in-the-street

politics

is just politics

and mysticism

is the right spirit.

In his Personalist Manifesto

Mounier tries to explain

what the man-in-the-street

call “the right spirit.”

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Abraham’s Oak Pat Gaffney

Abraham’s oak, also known as the Oak of Mamre is

set back on one of the main roads leading out of the

city of Hebron/ Al-Khalil – the city of the Patriarchs

and Matriarchs. We stopped to take a look. Support-

ed by wooden props and surrounded by flowering

thistles it is now cared for by the Russian Orthodox

community of Monastery of the Holy Trinity. Scrip-

ture tells us this is where Abraham pitched his tent

and where he welcomed three strangers. These

words are found again in Hebrews, ‘remember al-

ways to welcome strangers, for by doing this, some

people have entertained angels without knowing it’.

There is also a Catholic Worker link! “Entertaining

Angels” is the name of a film made on the life of

Dorothy Day.

This short stop followed our visit to Hebron, part of

the programme of our Pax Christi International 70

Anniversary gathering in Palestine in May. I had

been to Hebron on several occasions but am always

shocked. So much sadness, violence, hostility and

injustice within such a small space. A community

divided and heavily militarised that has become the

home of a number of Christian peace initiatives in-

cluding the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) and

the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Pal-

estine & Israel (EAPPI). While not suggesting that

these peace communities are ‘angels’ I do feel there

is a connection with the scriptures. Both are

‘strangers’ welcomed by the local Palestinian com-

munity and some Israeli groups. Two-way friend-

ships are built and hospitality is offered. The peace-

makers seek to ‘be with’ their Palestinian neighbours

in their nonviolent struggle for justice and to witness

to the hope and peace of the Gospel.

The CPT house is well situated, rising above Chick-

en Market Street, still a bustling part of the old City of

Hebron and Shuhada Street, a ghost-town of a place

where around 500 illegal Israeli settlers have made

their home. From the roof-top we were shown the

painful division that is Hebron. Following periods of

violence over the years from both communities, Is-

raeli and Palestinian, Shuhada Street is a no-go area

for Palestinians today. It is patrolled by armed mem-

bers of the Israeli Defence Forces and the settler

community. Walls and fences have been built to

separate it from Palestinian houses and markets –

isolating the few who have been able to remain. Pal-

estinians who live around and beyond Shuhada

Street must make circuitous journeys into the city to

visit the markets and the Mosque.

The settler communities seek the military protection

of the IDF and their own security teams. This pres-

ence, among a diminishing Palestinian community is

a source of anger and frustration. Young Palestini-

ans become a focal point for attention out in the

street, maybe taunting the settlers, maybe just going

about their business – they are stopped, sometimes

detained and in particularly tense periods become

victims of tear-gas and violent treatment. This is the

backdrop for the work of both CPT and EAPPI work

Hebron. Teams of two or three peacemakers moni-

tor the street, especially at times of tension. They

may film what they see and will report abuses to the

UN and to Israeli authorities. EAPPI describe this a

‘protective presence’ that seeks to persuade perpe-

trators of violence or human rights abuse to act dif-

ferently, and deter attacks on civilians.

An essential part of their work is to help the children

who attend the Cordoba school – at one end of

Shuhada Street, to navigate their way to and from

school each day. The school is built high on a ter-

race above the street and the steps leading to the

school are steep and dangerous for children carry-

ing their heavy backpacks. Many of the teachers,

children, and sometimes their parents, must come

through checkpoint 56 several times a day. This is

staffed by armed IFD who can stop and search those

passing through at any time. The peacemakers of-

fer support and protection to the Palestinians and

can talk with the mostly young soldiers who guard

the checkpoint. What is not so easy is engagement

with the settler community who often taunt the chil-

dren and treat the peacemakers with contempt.

Building partnerships is an important aspect of a

peace presence and we saw this in the cooperative

work with the Israeli group Breaking the Silence, for-

mer IDF members who ‘expose the Israeli public to

the reality of everyday life in the Occupied Territo-

ries’. From the centre of Hebron we drove out to the

South Hebron Hills to the village of Susiya, accom-

panied by Yehuda of BtS who leads groups and en-

courages solidarity work within Israel. We found a

scattered, almost biblical–like community. Nasser

Nawajah,a member of the village who is also works

for the human rights group B’Tselem, told us of the

vulnerability of the 300 Palestinians who have al-

ready been ‘removed’ several times under the civil

and military laws of Israel who argue that the area is

an important archaeological site… in fact it is sur-

rounded by illegal settlements. He explained one of

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the Israeli tactics, the control water. Wells are

blocked and other water sources, essential for live-

stock and domestic use, are far away often in areas

that are out of bounds for Palestinians. The villagers

are forced to buy water at exorbitant rates. In May

the Israeli High Court denied an injunction taken out

by the villagers to stop their forcible transfer. This

approach illustrates a great model of cooperation

between the villagers themselves, Israeli groups

working to support their human rights and the soli-

darity work of members of CPT and EAPPI who

have been taking part in vigils and monitoring pres-

ence since mid-May.

It was inspiring to meet these teams of mainly young

people from the UK, Norway, Philippines, Palestine,

working together in tough circumstances, sharing in

the daily lives of their neighbours, maintaining a

sense of humour, continuing to’ love one another as

brothers and sisters’ in their welcoming of the other.

Pat Gaffney is General Secretary of Pax Christi. She was in Palestine & Israel in May to take part in the 70 anniversary celebrations of Pax Christi, the international Catholic movement for peace. www.paxchristi.org.uk www.eappi.org/en www.cpt.org/work/palestine

Abida and the dates Michael Sutherland

I nipped out from the Place of Welcome to get some

disposable cups and trays. We run the Place of Wel-

come each Saturday for refugees to come and learn

some English, meet friends and have something to

eat. Its situated in the basement of an old Victorian

building in the Centre of Glasgow next to the impos-

ing Jesuit church of St Aloysius and close to the

Glasgow School of Art. St Aloysius hosts the nation-

al shrine to Scotland’s first Jesuit martyr St John

Ogilvie hanged and disembowelled at Glasgow

Cross, Catholics were not too popular in Glasgow in

1614. We need the cups for the soup kitchen we run

on a Friday night and when we go out giving hot

drinks to those begging on the streets on a Satur-

day. The trays are used by the Hilton Hotel who fill

them with hot meals for us to give out at the soup

kitchen. A couple weeks ago we were given par-

tridge, is this a record, first soup kitchen to serve

partridge?

As I drove along towards the cash and carry, which

is in Possilpark near our allotment, I got stuck in traf-

fic waiting for an Orange Lodge march to pass.

The Orange Order had a big gathering last weekend

in George Square , “Orangefest”, with about 5000

people attending. July though is the month when

you see a lot of these marches. Although there is

always a debate about allowing these marches be-

cause they encourage sectarianism, I always found

when I worked in the centre of Glasgow that they

helped break the monotony of the day with their

banners and uniforms and the noise of the drums

and penny whistles.

While waiting in the traffic jam they announced on

the radio details of the Queen’s birthday honours

list. As I listened to some of the names being hon-

oured I thought of the words of Jesus, ‘For to him

who has will more be given; and from him who has

not, even what he has will be taken away’. The

powers and their system rewards its players with

fantastic salaries and privilege and ultimately in the

UK with being Lords and Ladies. Donald Trump who

is running for president declares, ‘I am the most suc-

cessful person ever to run for the presidency by far’,

‘I am really rich. My net worth is $8.7bn’ , proof in-

deed of his success. (He pops up in Scotland every

so often to build a golf course and to tell us to stop

building wind farms). The words of Jesus tell us how

it is with the world and point to a better life for all

where the worth of each individual is not judged by

what you have but by what you give. This personal

giving is what our soup kitchen and Place of Wel-

come are all about, living the Life.

I eventually returned to meet Abida who had arrived

with the meals from the Mosque. Abida never as-

sumes anything, everything is suffixed with ‘God

willing’. She has brought along some dates from

Palestine for the guys to break their fast with, Rama-

dan starts Friday. I tell her about the wooded carv-

ings doing the rounds in Glasgow churches made by

Palestinians.

Abida and the dates remind us that our outing to the

seaside on Saturday might not be quite what we ex-

pect if most of those coming who are Muslim will be

fasting. Largs is famous for Nardini’s ice-cream par-

lour. We try to work out how we Catholic Workers

can still get our ice-cream without the guys noticing

and making their hunger worse. Dorothy Day once

said that ‘The best thing to do with the best things in

life is to give them up.’ We’ve still some work to do

on that.

Michael Sutherland is from the Catholic Worker in

Glasgow

catholicworker.org.uk/

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Reflections from the Catholic Worker Euro - gathering Nora Ziegler

In mid May, people from various Catholic Worker communities in the UK, Germany and the Nether-lands, and their friends, came together for the “Catholic Worker Euro-Gathering” in Kent. We spent four days together, with workshops, bonfires, a talk by Kathy Kelly, an action at the Home Office and a chance to expose our talent and immaturity at “Cabaret Night”.

Round the campfire at the Catholic Worker Euro-gathering [Photo Mirjam Johannson]

I have been involved in the Catholic Worker for two years now but I have only ever known our own com-munity at Giuseppe Conlon House and the Catholic Worker Farm. Meeting all these different people from different parts of the UK and Europe, and hearing about their work and everyday lives, was an im-portant experience for me. I could say it felt empow-ering. I learned that there are many ways of doing things, sometimes very different and even contradic-tory, yet based in the same values and spirituality.

In some communities, like our own, none of the com-munity members or volunteers has paid work, while others are made up of families where one or both partners work, so their children can be taken on holi-days and given piano lessons. Some communities have strict policies for enforcing house rules, and oth-ers do not seem to have many rules at all.

This knowledge gives us the freedom to discover our way of doing things, with the people around us, and the resources we have available to us. We can make mistakes and learn from them as all communities and grassroots projects do, without the fear of ‘getting it all wrong’. This fear is always there, especially for a newish community of “young amateurs”, as we like to think of ourselves. I am often worried and stressed about not knowing how things will go or whether we

are making the right decisions but just as often I feel amazed at what we are capable of and how much I have grown in my time here.

Sometimes I feel completely out of my depth during a “difficult talk” with a guest or I’m afraid of treating someone unfairly. Then at other times I somehow manage to come to an agreement with a person I had found difficult to communicate with, or to com-fort someone in distress, or to mediate a conflict and I thank God for giving us the courage to engage with people, despite our many insecurities.

At the gathering someone said that the Spirit is working at Giuseppe Conlon House. I feel it to be true. I am awed at the beauty and love that is creat-ed through the joint effort of so many different peo-ple: guests, volunteers, supporters, and friends. At the same time it is terrifying never to be in control, never to have a clear view of the end product, some kind of blue print for what a good Catholic Worker community should look like. All we can do is have faith in the Spirit that guides our hearts and actions and be grateful so that we do not start building our egos instead of community.

My experience at the Catholic Worker is captured well in Jeremiah 17:8 “They will be like a tree plant-ed by the water that sends out its roots by the stream […] it has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit." I have always loved this passage but I never really felt planted close to water until now. I thrive in this community through our daily prayers, the vigils, the friendships we build and the overwhelming support we receive.

Among these, there is the Euro-Gathering which filled me with strength and enthusiasm for weeks after. It was incredible to spend time with all these people who I had never met but who had always thought of us and prayed for us, during our most difficult times. It was good to meet people who face similar problems and have made similar mistakes. It was good to receive advice and encouragement but also just to realize that we don’t have to be so hard on ourselves. We are just ordinary people, trying really hard, and so are other Catholic Workers; so were Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, as we learned from the Catholic Worker Farm’s skit at Cabaret Night.

Like trees planted near the water, when we trust in God’s presence among us, we bear fruit. The kinds of fruit differ from person to person, and from com-munity to community. It is natural that communities change as people come and go. This can be scary, especially because there is often so little structure, so few rules about how to do it right. This is why we grow in our faith every day and learn to pray: “You are in our midst, O Lord, and we are called by your name. Do not forsake us!” (Jeremiah 14:9).

Nora Ziegler is a live-in member of the community at Giuseppe Conlon House

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Giuseppe Conlon House update

Mirjam Johannson

This summer marks the fifth anniversary of Giuseppe Conlon House. We celebrated with Mass, said by Fr Martin Newell, followed by a party for friends and vol-unteers. We also produced a five year report, which will shortly be available on our website.

The same weekend both volunteers and guests took part in the procession at the Mass for Migrants, at St. George’s Cathedral, where our hand sewn banner made its first public appearance.

A highlight of this spring was the Catholic Worker Eurogathering, at Cudham in Kent, where we met communities from Holland, Germany and Scotland to share our experiences. The first talk was from US-based peace activist Kathy Kelly, who spoke of her experiences in Iraq during the second Iraq war. Her talk was based around the theme of water and she quoted from Leonard Cohen’s ‘Anthem’,

‘Every heart, every heart to love will come, but like a refugee.

In support of migrants at Calais’ notorious ‘Jungle’ camp, on the 4th July, seven of us got up at 4am to catch the ferry from Dover. We took a van loaded with over a hundred blankets and sleeping bags, mat-tresses, tents, a few camping mats and chairs, 200 tea cups, a lot of tea, cooking equipment, shoes, clothes and toiletries, most of which was donated within a few weeks of our announcement that we were proposing the trip. We also received £280 in donations which covered the travel costs.

On arrival in Calais we met up with George Gilles of Association SALAM, who took us to the Centre Jules Ferry just next to the "Jungle" refugee camp, east of the port. We unloaded most of what we had brought into their storage space and he told us about their

work and how they are restricted by the government in how and where they can distribute what they are given. After this he showed us the way to the actual camp where we walked around, talking with the peo-ple living there under very bad conditions. Only just last week did they get access to clean drinking water from a tap on the camp.

Later in the afternoon we visited the parish project Secours Catholique, Caritas France, in a church in the city centre. We gave them the rest of our dona-tions to distribute.

For all of us the trip was an intense and important one and we will tell you more once we have had a chance to reflect on it. There is no doubt that the ma-terial need in the camps is nearly endless with new migrants continuously arriving. SALAM gives out 80 blankets a day to newcomers. The nearby Centre Jules Ferry serves 2000 meals every day.

This trip was an exploratory one. We plan to return with more supplies, but we also want to find out from the organisations there how we can help in the best way and what it is that they really need, not only in terms of supplies.

As some of you know, Jonny Mallam-Clark and Broeder Johannes Maertens have moved on to new adventures. Dan Viesnik, who has been involved in the London Catholic Worker ever since he volun-teered at our former project, Peter’s café in Hackney, has also moved out but continues to help two days a week, for which we are extremely grateful. We are very pleased to welcome our newest community member - Juan Peris from Alicante, Spain - and there are more to come in the autumn. Meanwhile we greatly appreciate all the support we get from external volunteers.

As always we would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who contributes to our work of hospitality by volunteering with us, giving donations and taking part in our events and activities.

Mirjam Johansson is a live-in member of the commu-nity at Giuseppe Conlon House

Guests and volunteers join the procession into St. George’s Cathedral, Southwark for the annual Migrants’ Mass in May[photo Mirjam Johannson]

Catholic Workers arrive at the ‘Jungle’ migrant camp in

Calais [photo Dan Viesnik]

8

new Spanish volunteer Juan, who we would be

leaving to hold the fort as the three of us guys left to

embark on new adventures. Although I knew that I

didn’t want to live full-time at the house any more, I

was committed to doing my bit to assist as an exter-

nal volunteer; so since moving out, I have been

helping out at the house a couple of days a week, as

I had done for a while before I moved in, and trying

to support the community in other ways as well. So

far this arrangement has worked out quite well for

me: I get to see everyone at GCH at least a couple

of days a week, sometimes joining in with LCW

activities on other days as well. I hope to keep up

this relationship in the future, but since I cannot

know what lies ahead, all I can do is try to enjoy

serving the community and being in its company in

the present.

On the eve of my departure in mid-May, I felt proud

and emotional as I took part in a blessing ceremony

for GCH, led by Br. Johannes. Within me there was

a deep sense that those who would remain to carry

on the fine work of the community couldn’t be more

committed and pure of heart, and that the blessings

bestowed upon the house would continue to bear

fruit in the months ahead. Whatever the future may

hold for me personally, I feel at peace knowing that

as long as you the reader continue to hold this won-

derful community in your prayers and offer it your

loving support, then all will be well at the London

Catholic Worker.

Dan Viesnik is a long term member of the London Catholic Worker.

It’s been emotional.. D.Viesnik

As I write this, a month has passed since I moved

out of Giuseppe Conlon House and I have had

some time to reflect upon my thirteen months living

and working full-time as a volunteer at this house

of hospitality for refugees and asylum seekers. I

have to say, it was with quite mixed emotions that I

made the decision to pack my bags and head back

across to the other side of north London. I certainly

felt quite sad about leaving the place where I had

really begun to feel a closer sense of community

amongst the volunteers in the last few months

especially. Yes, as one might expect from any

close-knit community living and working in a fairly

pressured and naturally quite stressful environment

without a lot of personal space, our life together

would include the occasional squabble; but even

those could provide the opportunity to develop

mutual understanding, compassion, loving kind-

ness and forgiveness, and to practise emotional

healing during, for instance, our daily prayers and

weekly community check-ins. But it must be said

that the daily stresses, lack of any real privacy and

emotional intensity of living and working in such an

environment on a daily basis had, I realised, taken

their toll on me and begun to disturb my inner equi-

librium to the extent that I felt a tangible sense of

relief inside me the morning I announced to my

beloved community that I had decided the time was

right for me to move on.

I knew that two other long-term community mem-

bers, Br. Johannes and Jonny, would be leaving at

the same time, and I felt bad for Mirjam, Nora and

[continued from front page] formed a dramatic

tableau to memorialise the recent deaths. The par-

ticipants reminded the government of its recent fail-

ures to rescue vulnerable human beings by acting

out the drowning deaths, pouring water over their

bodies and lying on the pavement.

Participants included forty local and international

members and supporters of the Catholic Worker

and Christian Peacemaker Teams from over ten

countries, ages ranging from two to eighty-seven

years old. For several years, CPT in Europe has

focused on 'Fortress Europe'; the deadly barriers to

seeking refuge that is taking shape in the policies

and practices of the European Union. Participants

at this year's CPT Europe Convergence discussed a

second summer of presence in Lesbos, Greece,

accompanying migrant support communities.

From members of Christian Peacemaker Teams

9

Recipe from Giuseppe Conlon House Nora Zeigler

Banana Jam

Almost all the food we eat is donated to us by local grocery shops, markets and charities. Sometimes we have massive amounts of one specific fruit or vegetable, so we try to discover new and different ways of using them. One im-portant thing I have learned at GCH is that ba-nana jam is easy to make and delicious, espe-cially with peanut butter!

Ingredients for about four jars of jam:

1 kilo of ripe bananas 0.5 kilo of sugar 2 limes or lemons A good amount of chopped or grated fresh gin-ger Half a cup of water

Instructions: (This is not exactly the way I did it, but appar-ently it’s the way you should do it if you want the jam to be yellow instead of brown)

Save some glass jars with metal lids and steri-lize by boiling them in a large pot for at least ten minutes (the jars should be completely covered with water)

Squeeze the lime/lemon into a bowl

Peel bananas and dice directly into the lime juice

Keep stirring with a wooden spoon while dicing the bananas to keep them from darkening

Add the ginger

Mix sugar and water in a pot and bring to a boil

Add the banana-ginger-lime mixture and boil over low heat for about 20 to 30 minutes, until thick

Fill into the sterilized jars while still hot, screw on the lids tightly and wipe clean

Leave the jars to cool upside down

If your jam does turn out brown like ours that doesn’t matter, it still tastes great! In fact, if you forget a couple of jars in the store cupboard for several months and then find them, and they are a darker shade of brown than before, they taste even better (at least ours did)!

Giuseppe Conlon House is looking for new members If you want to live simply, in community with the poor, and work for peace and justice, then this could be for you!

Members join a community of hospitality and non violent resistance, for three months or more. Mem-bers take part in accompanying the guests, in case work, in the daily tasks of hospitality, housekeep-ing, collecting food donations, building repairs, gar-dening, administration, organizing and taking part in workshops and vigils and creative projects. We offer free accommodation and meals.

The benefits are gaining experience of living in soli-darity with the poor, joining with acts of resistance, exploring Catholic Worker spirituality.

Volunteering There are many other ways of getting involved for those who want to be part of our extended commu-nity. We have regular volunteers who come in to help cook in the evenings, pick up food donations or help us run the Urban Table soup kitchen in Hackney on Sundays.

We also rely on volunteers to help us with different aspects of our work by sharing their time, knowledge and skills. For example, we often need help with DIY, plumbing, book keeping, fundraising, IT, and publishing this newsletter.

Sign up to our email and mailing lists: You can get in touch to subscribe to our email list for regular updates and event announcements and sign up to our mailing list to receive our free newsletter.

For more information contact us: Email: londoncatholicworker@yahoo.co.uk

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Regular events

Giuseppe Conlon House, 49 Mattison Road, Lon-don N4 1 BG

Please note, we will be taking a break from regular activities during July and August.

The first activity after the holidays will be Clari-fication of Thought, on ‘Borders’ and the re-cent trip to Calais, September 3rd, 7:00pm

Daily Prayers Monday – Saturday 9:00 am

Clarification of Thought First Thursday of the month, 7:00 pm

Bible Study Second and Fourth Thursday of the month, 7:00 pm

Monthly Prayer Third Thursday of the month, 7:00 pm

Rosary of the Oppressed Last Friday of the Month 6:30 pm

Vigil for Refugees First Tuesday of the month, Foreign & Commonwealth Office, King Charles Street, Third Tuesday of the month at the Home Office, Marsham Street, 12:30pm

All welcome.

Call 020 8348 8212 for details

Dorothy Day’s diary August 7

St. Cajetan

On suffering. Jo has hay fever and he works so hard and we need him so I found my-self praying that he be cured imme-diately. And then I thought that his misery

was probably worth more to the work than his ease. (Easy to judge for others). We do not make enough of suffering, we do not rejoice in this coin that is giv-en us to pay our debts and those of others. I should welcome my sick headaches, but usually I rebel, thinking how if I had been a bit more sensible I could have avoided it. But then often it cannot be avoided, it just descends on one. So it should be welcomed in those cases at least as an opportunity of quietly enduring without complaint and submitting and accepting the will of God. The sacrament of the present moment.

One of the objections to suffering which we do not admit is that it is undignified. It is not wound heroi-cally received in battle. Hay fever, colds in the head, bilious attacks, poison ivy, such like irritations which are sometimes even worse than a severe illness are to say the least petty and undignified. But in reality it takes heroic virtue to practice patience in little things. Things which seem little to others but which afflict one with unrest and misery. Patience with each other and each other’s bickerings. We can even offer up, however, our own lack of peace, our own worry. Since I offered all the distractions, tur-moil and unrest I felt at things going askew a few weeks ago, my petty fretting over this one and that one, I have felt much better and more able to cope with everything.

Toothaches, bruised faces even, received in street fighting are ugly and grotesque. It is hard to heroi-cally receive blows in the face from a policeman, for instance, and take it like a Christian, in the spirit of non-resistance. A spirit of hatred and a fierce desire for retaliation seems more manly, more human. Moral force being hard to see, is a thousand times harder than physical force. Strength of spirit is not so often felt to be apparent as strength of body. And we in our vanity wish this strength to be apparent. Human respect again. And yet moral force is always felt.

from the Duty of Delight, The Diaries of Dorothy Day, edited by Robert Ellsberg, published by MUP

Would you like a speaker from

London Catholic Worker to give a talk

in your area?

We are available to give talks and workshops on

catholic worker spirituality, peace and justice, faith

and resistance, hospitality, on our work with refu-

gees.

Contact us : londoncatholicworker@yahoo.co.uk

Upcoming Events The things that make for peace: National Justice and Peace Conference 17th—19th July, Swanick, Derbyshire

Stop the Arms Fair: join us during the week of action 8th September, near the Excel Centre, and for a candlelit vigil 14th September

2015 London Anarchist Bookfair:- Find us at the London Catholic Worker stall, 24th October 10:00am-4:00pm. Central St. Martin’s Kings Cross. We will be holding a seminar on radical hospitality

For more information on any of these events

email londoncatholicworker@yahoo.co.uk

or call 020 8348 8212 for more details

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Support Our Work with the crucified of today's world We are a part of the radical, Christian, paci-fist Catholic Worker movement started in 1933 in New York by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. There are now over 150 houses and communities in the United States and in other countries. Cath-olic Worker houses are independent financially. There are no headquarters, nor is there a central organization. More information is available on the U.S based website www.catholicworker.com.

At Giuseppe Conlon House we run a house of hospitality for 20 homeless and destitute asylum seekers who are not allowed to work or claim benefits. In collaboration with two local churches we also serve a meal for up to 50 people in Hack-

Make a donation to our edible wish list:

lamb peanuts raisins cheese chocolate

Please no alcohol or pork

Chilli Sauce Rice, couscous Red and green lentils Olive oil, cooking oil Vinegar, mayonnaise Tinned fish Spice, Sugar Sunflower seeds Low-fat spread Fruit juice Herbal teabags Hot chocolate powder Decaffeinated coffee Cereal, muesli, granola Jam, marmalade, honey Peanut butter, chocolate spread, Vegetable stock cubes

Toilet paper Liquid soap Shampoo Deodorant Shaving products Body lotion Household cleaning products Incense sticks Tealights Deliver to:Giuseppe Conlon House, 49 Mattison Road, Londn N4 1BG. We can also collect donations from north and north east London. Call 0208 348 8212

‘Prayer — without this all the rest is useless’

We need your expertise: Help us with: DIY, building our website, with IT with writing newsletter articles and pamphlets, making banners with prayers and liturgy

Cash Donations. We would be very grateful for any help you can give us. We are not paid for this work. We receive nothing from the govern-ment. For reasons to do with our political witness, we are not a registered charity. We are all volunteers, so we are able to make the best possible use of what we are given, for the benefit of those in need.

Heating We rely on our readers’ donations to pay heating bills, internet, water and other costs. Please consider setting up a regular donation. You can use the Standing Order Form provided overleaf or send your donation to:

London Catholic Worker,

Triodos Bank

Account Number 20066996

Sort Code: 16 58 10

Alternatively you can send a cheque, payable to

‘London Catholic Worker’, to Giuseppe Conlon

House, 49 Mattison Road, London N4 1 BG

Our accounts are available on request.

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Sarah Melici in ‘Fool for Christ, The story of Dorothy Day’

☐I would like to buy a copy of ‘Fool for Christ’ I enclose a cheque/postal order for £12

☐I would like to make a donation. I enclose a cheque for £…………

Please return to :

London Catholic Worker

49 Mattison Road

London N4 1BG

Your Name and Address

Post Code Email

Standing Order Form Please use block letters

I wish to pay the London Catholic Worker £10/ £20/£40/other amount per month/ other

Payments to be made monthly/ other First Payment to be made on: / / 14 and monthly thereafter

Name of your bank

Address of your bank

Your account name

Your account number

Your bank sort code Please pay:

Triodos Bank

Deanery Road

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For the Credit of: London Catholic Worker

Account Number 20066996

Sort Code: 16 58 10

Until further notice the sum of the value indicated above

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Please return to :

London Catholic Worker

49 Mattison Road

London N4 1BG

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Email

We have copies of the DVD for sale. Price £10 plus £2.00 postage and packing

You can see the trailer at this website: www.foolforchrist.com

‘This is a one-woman performance in which we meet Dorothy while she is in jail for the last time

late in her life, having been arrested for taking part in a picket line with striking farm workers in

California.

Dorothy -- played brilliantly by Sarah Melici -- addresses the audience as if they were visiting her

in prison, recalling other times in jail, and then going on to relate the story of her life.’ Jim Forest